Talk:Creative Principle in Science
Chance On page two, it states,"Chance fails to explain progressive evolution", why not?- a chance development in a species endures because it is more successful in survival. A decent into chaos would mean an eventual end to the species.So what we have is a result of chance developments that have been successful in promoting survival as opposed to unsuccessful. *The logic behind this question is flawless, so long as one ignores the reality it refers to and the probability of chance achieving the levels of perfection found in Nature. *The hypothesis of a 'chance creator' applies to physical as well as biological phenomena. Biologically we can resort to random mutation as an explanation, but how to explain the incredible coincidence of physical values in nature that make this universe possible -- such as those discussed in section 3 of the article? *'Biologically, successful adaptation is far more difficult than failure for a species as it is for anything else.' Every parent who raises a child and every entrepreneur who founds a company knows how easy it is for things to go wrong. Few successful people will concede that their survival or success could be achieved simply by chance events. Just think of how many ways you could spoil an omlette! It is infinite. So left to chance, what is the probability that your two your old child, a chimp or a windstorm will create a perfect omlette by chance and have it ready just when you want it? Examine any single facet of nature's complexity and we find an almost inconceivable perfection. But what process of chance does the synergy between the honeybee and the flower evolve? We can understand that honeybees live off flowers or flowers benefit from honeybees, but the perfect symbiosis is indeed a remarkable coincidence. Can we calculate the probability of it occuring spontaneously? Survival of either species may benefit by taking advantage of the other, but mutually beneficial adaptation purely by chance requires the processing power of a supercomputer -- or a very vivid imagination. *Evolutionary theorists can argue that new species arose by successful adaptation to a gradually changing physical environment. That explains survival of existing species, but what we find it a progressive manifestation of capacities as we move up the chain of life from micro-organisms to plants, animals and human beings. Can we attribute that progression to chance? It is not enough to conclude that each stage of the progression provided an adaptive advantage. It must also have added the mutant individual to reproduce more effectively than other individuals. Can we confidently assert that small, slow, relatively weak human beings who could not climb or run swiftly or kill with their bare hands had a natural competitive advantage over the apes from which they evolved? *Evolutionary theory suggests that there should be a continuous gradient of species from one end of the spectrum to the other, since each evolved in a step-wise fashion from the one below it. We might understand if a few links in the chain are missing, but actually what we find are huge gaps and distances between species that are not easily accountable by chance mutation. In micro-organisms mutation produces millions of variants, many of which survive. Yet we do not observe this infinite range in nature.garry 17:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC) contributors will be able to track your questions and comments more easily if you will sign in with these four marks ~ when you use the talk/discussion pages. Thank you. An Alternative Hypothesis In this article, it is suggested that life evolves out of matter and is involved in all matter. Why are there no examples of continuing evolution of simple life forms becoming more complex, or of new life forms evolving from matter? Darwinian theory also presupposes that life evolved out of matter, so the same question would apply with regard to standard evolutionary theory. Actually it would be more relevant since the assumption is a chance progression through an infinite number of infinitesimal mutations as referred to in the response to question 1 above. Sri Aurobindo, on the other hand, posits that there is a conscious will and intention behind the evolution, a conscious formulation of a gradation of forms that manifest higher principles of life and consciousness. There is no need for an infinite gradation since the process is not occuring by chance. The entrepreneur who grows a company, hopefully does not commit every conceivable folly in order to discover a path to success. He or she learns from experience and from the experience of others to avoid at least some of the pitfalls and byways that lead to failure or stagnation or a dead end. Sri Aurobindo posits an evolutionary intention is behind the entire manifestation of life forms. That intention is to create biological forms that can express higher levels of consciousness. Along the way there is ample scope for variation to express the infinite complexity of the consciousness that is evolving and seeking forms of expression. garry 17:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Conscious Force As stated, knowledge and will are unified both below (the animal instinct)and above (higher states of conciousness) the human condition. Is this, perhaps because the human mind is not truthful enough to support the combination? The division between knowledge and will are inherent characteristics of the human mind at that level of consciousness, no matter how truthful it may be in the ordinary sense of the word. Assuming we want to do the right thing, we may not know how to do it. Even if we know what is the right thing, we may not know how to do it. Awareness of what to do and will or capacity to do what is needed are separated at the mental level. In our vital emotions, knowledge and will are integrated. We know how we feel about something and our emotional will endorses what our emotions feel. If we dislike something, we will to avoid or hurt it, though we may not act on that will. If something is pleasing to us, we like something and seek it. Ignorance prevents our mental will from always expressing its energy effectively. Weakness and incapacity of will prevent our mental knowledge from always effectuating itself successfully. Both the ignorance and the incapacity are overcome when our consciousness rises above the mental level.garry 17:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Why is something new necessarily inherent in the old? For something new to manifest, it is stated that it must be inherent in the previous forms. But we see no evidense of water in either hydrogen or oxygen, why can there not be something completely new out a combination of things? Why must it necessarily be involved before hand? It is not a question of old and new. It is a question of less or more conscious and organized. The evolution results in the emergence of higher levels of consciousness and that consciousness expresses through more complex forms of organization. The question is where does that consciousness come from and where does the capacity or design for the complexity originate. The law of entrophy is the fundamental principle of the physical plane and physical science. It states that all systems move to lower states of order and complexity. Things run down and disintegrate over time, even our sun. This holds good for all physical systems. But in the evolution of life we find the opposite movement from lower to higher levels of order and complexity. Living organisms represent a far higher level of organization than inanimate material forms. Consciousness itself is a supremely high level of orderliness. It represents the very opposite of randomness. How can they both emerge from a lower level of existence unless the potential and propensity is not already there implicit within the lower level? If you take any orderly arrangement and introduce chance events, what would you expect to be the outcome? Greater disorder. If you let a baby crawl around next to a half finished jigsaw puzzle, which is more likely -- the completed portion gets disrupted or the incomplete portion gets completed? If the latter actually occurs, you would be right to suspect that it was not the baby that did it! garry 19:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Perhaps we can say that what is involved is akin to a genetic code of potentiality. Once the higher organization takes place in the current plane that potentiality of the next or a higher plane changes to reality.--Gurusoft 19:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC)